Wednesday, March 11, 2009

(University of Central Florida) UCF scientist Wade Winterhalter landed an $860,000 grant from the US Department of Energy for an innovative study involving crickets that may provide clues about whether or not humans can survive global warming.

If successful, Winterhalter's study could provide insights into the impact of global warming on other creatures, their life cycles and their migration patterns – and it could further the understanding of how global warming will affect mankind.

"We, as scientists, are no longer trying to determine if global warming is occurring or if it will be 'bad' for our native wildlife or our domesticated plants and animals," said Winterhalter. "Those questions have already been answered. What this project does is determine exactly how 'bad' it is going to get and how much time we have before these negative consequences will occur."

This is one of the first research projects that links Atmospheric Oceanic General Circulation Models that predict rises in temperature over time with a sound biological model that successfully predicts breeding patterns of a creature.